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Defense Secretary Ash Carter holds a Stanford hoodie that was presented to him by Amy Zegart following his speech on cybersecurity at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., on Thursday, April 23, 2015. Zegart is co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. (Gary Reyes/Bay Area News Group)

If government, academic and industry leaders have their way, Silicon Valley will soon become ground zero for a new kind of technology — flexible electronics.

The technology, which has been years in development, allows sensors and chips to be embedded or printed in materials that can flex and bend. Potential applications include smart bandages that can alert doctors to infections without being removed and sensor networks placed on the outside of vehicles or buildings that can detect strains and stresses in real time.

On Friday, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter will announce the creation of a new institute in San Jose to develop manufacturing techniques and new applications for flexible electronics. The Defense Department will invest $75 million over five years in the initiative. The institute will receive an additional $90 million from a coalition composed of Apple and other tech companies; the city of San Jose and other local governments; and academic institutions, including Stanford and San Jose State.

The Defense Department and the Obama administration see flexible electronics “as being a key component to stimulate overall manufacturing in America,” said Andre Gudger, the acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for manufacturing and industrial based policies.

The Manufacturing Innovation Institute for Flexible Hybrid Electronics, as it will be called, will be operated by the FlexTech Alliance, an industry trade group.

While prototypes of flexible electronics have been around for years, manufacturers are still trying to figure out how to mass produce them, said Malcolm Thompson, who will be the executive director of the new institute. That’s where the institute will step in. The group plans to create a pilot manufacturing line in a facility in East San Jose to test manufacturing techniques that could later be adopted by manufacturers, Thompson said.

“We really want to focus on taking those great ideas and prototypes … and making them mature in the manufacturing stage,” he said.

The institute is part of a broader push announced by Carter in April to strengthen ties between the Defense Department and Silicon Valley. At a speech Friday at Moffett Field, Carter is due to announce another part of that effort — the first round-table discussion between defense officials and tech leaders at the department’s newly opened outpost in Silicon Valley, which is dubbed the Defense Innovation Unit — Experimental (DIUx). The department hopes the DIUx office will allow the defense establishment to more readily keep track of new technological developments by serving as a place where technology leaders, entrepreneurs and defense officials can swap ideas.

The institute is also part of a bigger push by the Obama administration to encourage a renaissance in manufacturing in the United States. It is the seventh of nine planned manufacturing hubs and the fifth of six backed by the Defense Department.

Troy Wolverton writes the Tech Files column and covers consumer technology as the personal technology columnist for the Bay Area News Group. Previously, he covered Apple and the consumer electronics industry. Earlier, he reported on technology, business and financial issues for TheStreet.com and CNET News.com.

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